The 80s Detective pulled the collar of his overcoat up around his ears and stepped out from the shadows of distorted columns and the shopkeeper appeared and beckoned him through the magic door to 1984, via an insistent saxophone theme played by Lol Coxhill, backed by the bulbous tones of Pino Palladino on fretless bass.
Britain in the 1980s was a thrilling, sometimes terrifying place to visit. The soundtracks were vivid and unpredictable, there was a war against all opposition to the rampant capitalist system that the state was imposing, the same system that finds ultimate expression in the current financial crisis.
The 80s detective is the lament of the rebel driven underground by the repression, searching for clues on the harbour walls, staring wistfully out to the lights of departing ships, directions of an internalised struggle manifest as an epic journey to now.